Oh no! We’re on a Tour Track job and we need to be in two places at once to take photographs of twilight/dusk. How can we accomplish this if there is not enough money to make multiple trips and we want to please both our client and Tour Track’s client.

Well, we’ll just have to use Nik Software’s complete package for Aperture, Light Room and Photoshop. For those of you who have a Nikon – they have a Nik Lite version called Nik Effects that can do the same things. No need to deal with masks, layers, brushes, levels, etc in Photoshop. We edited our last tour track direct from Aperture using the Nik Plug-ins.

All the modules basically work the same. You place a dot on the picture, move a few sliders and close up the plug in and you have a non-destructive edit that if using photoshop can be re-edited right from its self made layer and mask. If you use aperture it makes a duplicate with the effect and you can keep coming back for more.

Using their patented U-Point technology we were able to start out with Color Effex. This plug in comes with over 50 filters. We chose the Midnight filter (doesn’t that sound dark and dusky). We first used the filter globally, meaning we applied the filter to the entire picture. We chose the Midnight blue rather than black or purple because we felt it looked best with the pool we shot. Our entire picture was bathed in Midnight Blue. Next we took the negative control point and we placed it in the areas we wanted to be brighter or have more focus for the eye. We used the brightness slider to create a gradually get darker or lighter effect up and down the picture.

Great – the picture looks like twilight but something was missing. Lamp posts were not lit because the photo was shot during the daytime. Oh no – now what. Thank goodness for their module Viveza 2. First I used positive points to saturate, contrast and texture the sky and pool. Then, using a very teeny-tiny control point, I placed it on the light bulb in the lamp post. I slide the brightness slider to 100%. Great – but the light was white and I wanted yellow. Now I adjusted the RGB slider until the color was what I wanted. But now, looking at the picture, the bulb didn’t light up enough of the area. So….slide, slide, slide that brightness slider and wow – you get a yellowish tint light that is brightest at the center and glows out gradually lightening the area around the lamp post.

RTV virtual tour providers who are having trouble with either shooting twilight photos or editing twilight into the photos.